Let's admit it - SEO is an acronym that scares people.

Why? Because it seems too technical, it changes all the time and it's overwhelming.

I get you. I was scared too until I started digging into it.

Then I realised it's quite basic and I managed to get my first SaaS business at that special #1 Google spot! Here is how I did it.

When looking for answers on how to do SEO, what it is and how it works, the articles that come up are often so technical, you need a degree from MIT to understand them.

The reason why SEO seems so complex is because the people writing about it are the ones that benefit from your confusion: The SEO consultants of this world who charge $5,000 a month to improve your ranking.

Let's not talk about on-page SEO; technical SEO; off-page SEO; DA links; PBN blog post; pinging services or second tier links...

Instead, let's go back to the essence of what Google and other search engines do and figure out how to play their game... with them.

What are search engines for?

Most of you don't remember what it was like going into a library. You had one question and thousands of books to look through. Instead of going through each of them you asked the librarian for help.

Google is your librarian. And Google is obsessed by being the best and fastest librarian there will ever be. Google's obsession is to deliver an answer to your question as precisely and quickly as possible.

If your SEO strategy is in line with Google's obsession, you will do well - no matter whether you are good at technical SEO or not. Your content will prevail.

Content is therefore key. The better the quality, the more traffic you'll get.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and it is the practice of increasing the quality and quantity of traffic to a particular website via organic (i.e. non-paid) results.

Forget the science behind Google's algorithms, crawling and other technical jargon.

The important thing at this stage is to understand that SEO is more about people than technology.

It is about (i) what people search on the net, (ii) the answers they need and (iii) content they're seeking.

The key is to understand what your target market is looking for and creating content that delivers what they want.

Once you know that, you can then use certain tools and techniques to make sure your content is properly picked up by search engines.

Why organic matters?

When you search on Google, do you click on the ads or do you scroll down to click on the first non-paid result?

85% of the time you'll do the latter...

In fact, only 6% of all traffic is generated via search engine paid traffic and roughly 65% is via organic flow, hence why content is so important.

How to get your SEO supercharged

1. Customer centric content

You will need to focus on creating content that matters to your customers.

What are your customers Googling?

Are they figuring out how to improve something or what mistakes to avoid?

These are the same questions you had to ask yourself when writing your mission statement.

Let's take an example.

If you are a fitness coach, health coach, raw food coach, diet coach or any other type of coach that focuses on getting people more vitality, your potential clients may look into coaching because they are worried about feeling tired all the time and they want their energy back.

The first thing they will most likely do is Google something like "why am I so tired all the time?"

This phrase is searched about ten thousand times a month! A lot of people are feeling tired.

This key question is your starting point to develop your content strategy.

You should then expand on this first question by extrapolating, approaching it from a different angle or making it more specific. For example:

Extrapolate: "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" - 165,000 searches per month

Different Angle: "reduce fatigue" - 170 searches per month

More specific: "Why am I so tired when I wake up?" - 880 searches per month

Here you go, you have terms bringing is 166k of searches per month!

2. Answer their questions - straight away!

Once you know what they are asking, provide them with practical answers - immediately!

Google focuses on content that delivers answers instantly. It doesn't like too much story telling because it slows the reader down.

Readers want to get to the meat immediately - no fancy amuse bouches please!

To the above questions give specific answers like:

Step by Step guide in building 3 weekly workout sessions to get consistent results.

The 30-day guide to eradicating carbs from your diet...forever!

Lean in 15 (thanks Joe Wicks!)

3. Publish, publish and publish some more

Write quality content that gives your readers what they want. It doesn't need to be a novel. Quick and to the point with practical tips.

Then publish.

Publishing is were you should spend 80% of your time. If you stick to your blog and hope for the best, people will not come. That's where most coaches, consultants and other entrepreneurs get it wrong.

You need to find other places to share your material: Twitter, Facebook, Reddit etc. and answer questions on Quora.

I have a list of places where you should publish in the SEO Supercharger™ cheatsheet for coaches

Promote a piece of content as if you were promoting your product. Relentlessly and accurately.

And deliver it where your audience hangs out.

Search for blogs who target your audience and ask them if you can do a guest post. Make these bloggers' life easy by sending them the article with all bells and whistles (stock pictures, great layout, links etc.) so that they can publish it easily and quickly.

4. Rinse and Repeat

Do this on a weekly basis and make it a ritual.

Do the following every week:

a. Figure out a new topic for your audience. If you can't come up with anything, reach out to your existing or previous clients and ask them what they are currently struggling with - that always works!

b. Get answers to your customers pains and deliver them a practical answer.

c. Search relevant search terms around this topic to include in your article using free SEO tools - for a step by step guide on how to do this, get my SEO Supercharger™ cheatsheet for coaches

d. Publish, publish and publish some more. This is the hardest and longest part, but once you have a process in place you can easily outsource that to a VA if need be.

Sadly, there are no real SEO hacks because Google works hard to avoid poor quality content landing on their first page.

The secret is to consistently deliver quality content that answers users' questions quickly and pragmatically.

If you are ready to commit, the SEO Supercharger™ Cheatsheet for coaches includes a six-week content challenge to get your writing habit kick-started.

Be heroic!

Phil